Probability: A graph showing the forecast of an Obama administration scandal reaches between 95 and 100 per cent by June 2012. |
President Obama's administration is set to be rocked by scandal - at least, according to one political scientist's mathematical formula. A newly-released report by scholar Brendan Nyhan predicts the reputation of the 44th US president will soon be marred by controversy. Where Are the Obama Scandals? calls the odds of scandal 'high and rising' after two years in office, based on his interpretation of data from presidential scandals between 1977 and 2008. Nyhan, a scholar at the University of Michigan, released the report to website Center for Politics on Thursday. Serving as a guest columnist, he presented detailed graphs illustrating the likelihood of a scandal to unfold before the 2012 presidential election - rising between 95 and 100 per cent by June of next year. The report reads: 'Obama has been extremely fortunate: My research on presidential scandals shows that few presidents avoid scandal for as long as he has.' He tested his hypotheses on scandal coverage data from Washington Post news reports and chronologies of presidential events covered by the New York Times. 'In the 1977-2008 period,' he wrote, 'the longest that a president has gone without having a scandal featured in a front-page Washington Post article is 34 months - the period between when President Bush took office in January 2001 and the Valerie Plame scandal in October 2003.' Nyhan claims his research is supported by the lack of support among Republicans for the Obama administration, and predicts he will follow 'a similar trajectory to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton (who both suffered significant first-term scandals).' (Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
奥巴马政府即将爆发丑闻,至少一位政治学者的数学公式是这么推断的。 学者布伦丹•尼汉在新发布的研究报告中预测,美国第44届总统的名声将很快陷入争议。 这一题为《奥巴马的丑闻在哪里?》的研究报告认为任职两年的奥巴马爆发丑闻的几率“很高而且不断上升”。该报告基于他对1977年至2008年间总统丑闻资料的解读。 尼汉是密歇根大学的一位学者,他周四将报告发布在“政治中心”网站上。 作为一位特邀专栏作家,他用详细的图解描述了在2012年总统大选前爆发丑闻的概率,这一概率在明年6月将升至95%到100%。 报告中说:“奥巴马一直都十分幸运:本人对总统丑闻的研究显示,很少有总统像他那样这么久都没有丑闻。” 他用《华盛顿邮报》新闻报道的丑闻资料和《纽约时报》的总统大事年表来检验自己的假想。 他写道:“在1977年到2008年这段时间,一位在职总统未有任何丑闻刊登在《华盛顿邮报》头版文章上的最长时间是34个月,也就是小布什总统2001年1月就职后到2003年10月爆发普拉姆丑闻为止。” 尼汉称,奥巴马政府缺乏共和党阵营的支持,这为他的研究进一步提供了依据。他还预言奥巴马将走上“罗纳德•里根和比尔•克林顿的老路(这两位都在第一任期爆发重大丑闻)”。 相关阅读 (中国日报网英语点津 陈丹妮 编辑:冯明惠) |
Vocabulary: Valerie Plame scandal: 即“特工门”丑闻,布什总统与副总统迪克•切尼的高级助手涉嫌泄露中央情报局特工瓦莱丽•普拉姆的身份 trajectory: the path followed by an object moving through space(轨迹,轨道) |